The Passion of Michel FoucaultShortly before his death in 1984, Michel Foucault defended his career as one of the most controversial thinkers of our time. "The philosophical life", he declared, "is the animality of being human, renewed as a challenge, practiced as an exercise - and thrown in the face of others as a scandal". Now, for the first time, here is a book that explores the true challenge - and "scandal" - of Foucault's life and work. Based on extensive new research and a bold reinterpretation of the man and his texts, The Passion of Michel Foucault is a startling look at one of this century's most influential philosophers. It chronicles every stage of Foucault's personal and professional odyssey, from his early interest in dreams to his final preoccupation with sexuality and the nature of personal identity. Exploring the wider context of his work, it conjures up the heyday of structuralism in Paris and the electrifying chaos of the strikes in May 1968. It recounts Foucault's debates with Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida, and his encounters with Noam Chomsky and Jurgen Habermas. And in revelations as fascinating as they may be shocking to some readers, The Passion of Michel Foucault provides the first detailed account of Foucault's lifelong obsession with death, suicide, drugs, and sadomasochistic eroticism - even under the mounting threat of AIDS in the 1980s. With the subtlety and sure grasp of history, politics, and philosophy that have marked his earlier books, James Miller has written a landmark study sure to provoke debate among readers everywhere. |
From inside the book
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Page 75
... existence can exist only by relinquishing life , there the existence is a tragic existence . " " 31 Foucault found " The Case of Ellen West " fascinating . West , he wrote in one of his two comments on the case , was “ caught between ...
... existence can exist only by relinquishing life , there the existence is a tragic existence . " " 31 Foucault found " The Case of Ellen West " fascinating . West , he wrote in one of his two comments on the case , was “ caught between ...
Page 77
... existence itself . " The dream must therefore be approached , not as a psychological symptom to be analysed , but rather as a key for solving the riddle of being - just as André Breton and the surrealists had been arguing since the ...
... existence itself . " The dream must therefore be approached , not as a psychological symptom to be analysed , but rather as a key for solving the riddle of being - just as André Breton and the surrealists had been arguing since the ...
Page 144
... existence of a science of nature . . . but in the existence - mute , yet ready to speak , and secretly impregnated with a potential discourse - of that not - known from which man is endlessly called toward knowledge of the self . " 66 ...
... existence of a science of nature . . . but in the existence - mute , yet ready to speak , and secretly impregnated with a potential discourse - of that not - known from which man is endlessly called toward knowledge of the self . " 66 ...
Contents
Preface | 5 |
THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR | 13 |
WAITING FOR GODOT | 37 |
Copyright | |
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André Glucksmann appeared Artaud Barraqué Bataille become Bersani Binswanger Blanchot body CF int Collège de France critical critique cruelty culture daimon Daniel Defert death Discipline and Punish discourse dream Edmund White Eribon erotic essay experience explained fantasies French Friedrich Nietzsche Georges Bataille Gilles Deleuze Glucksmann Guibert Habermas Heidegger Heidegger's Hervé Guibert History of Sexuality homosexual human Ibid idea imagination intellectual interview Jean Kant Kant's kind labyrinth language later Le Nouvel Observateur lectures liberation limit-experience Madness and Civilization Maoist March Maurice Blanchot Michel Foucault modern moral Nietzsche's novel one's Order of Things Paris perhaps philosopher Pierre pleasure political possible practice prison published question reason recalls remarked revealing revolution Robbe-Grillet Roussel Sade Sartre Sartre's seemed social society struggle suicide thinker thought torture trans transgression truth Wade writing wrote York